I'm from Ohio, but had the fortune to work for several years for a small Catalan consulting firm in Barcelona, Spain. I quit several months before moving back to the United States in order to do some travel, etc... Not least because I was leaving of my own accord, my farewell email was full of the usual well-wishes for colleagues and what not. The subject:
Yankee Goes Home
The survey by market research firm NPD Group found that approximately 1.7 million U.S. households downloaded a song from iTunes in March.
I wonder how they collected this particular statistic. It seems doubtful that they did it using any sort of objective traffic metrics, but rather that it was a survey of some sort where people were asked from where, if anywhere did they download music. If this is true, then the results of this study should be taken with a large grain of salt. Those downloading from the more notorious sites are less likely to respond truthfully than those using iTunes.
One serious problem I see with the 'matching source' method is that it's rare to find two sources that truly match. Movies are a great example - as a native English speaker that lived for 5 years in Spain, I can attest to the fact that the translations provided by the movie studios (used for subtitles in the theater and also for DVDs) are problematic on many levels.
It's not enough to recognize a given word in language A is such and such word in language B, and not even enough to do the same with idiomatic phrases such as 'His bark is worse than his bite' (Mucho ruido, pocas nueces in Spanish, literally 'Lots of noise but few pecans').
The problem is that the content itself is sometimes changed in translation. Cultural differences, pop culture references, names and places are all changed liberally when creating movie subtitles. This is something that it is easy enough for a bilingual human to notice and disregard, but how is a computer to know what to keep and what to disregard when comparing the supposedly matching sources.
Choice of source material is extremely important here, and probably explains why they are starting with UN documents, a formal, business-like body of text with presumably less room for content differences. Unfortunately, the fact that movie translations cannot easily be used means that much of what we humans find amusing about bad babelfish translation (literal translation of slang, etc...) will continue to plague us for some time to come.
Another weird thing about the US is that pretty much the entire world wants to know your social-security number.
It's funny that you bill this as an American issue coming from the UK. I'm sure your observation is correct from the vantage point you're making it from. Many probably read this as a difference between Europe and the US.
But as an American who lived for 5 years in Spain, I was taken aback by just the opposite. People there are constantly asked for their 'NIF' (SSN). And they readily give it up, too - not just to what I (as an American) would call legitimate third parties such as a bank but even when signing up for contests, free offers, etc...
I was doing a coding project there for a bank and the developers even entered their own NIF's when testing the application. You can bet I never gave mine up!
Um, an oxymoron is something that is true / makes sense despite seeming to be a contradiction.
Baby steps are usually tentative, small moves towards an eventual goal. We usually use 'baby steps' as a phrase when talking about slowing down, accepting measured progress rather than rushing and the like.
Rapidly evolving baby steps is an amusing way of saying that from a modest start things are progressing in a rather quick way.
Zipping an xml file would address one of the two problems that are discussed (transport over the network) but not the other.
The harder problem is getting applications to process xml data faster. Starting with a gzipped data file and then processing it doesn't speed up processing. Some sort of parseable minimal text format or binary format, on the other hand, would make faster processing possible, just at the risk of diverging standards for how to convert to binary and read it thereafter.
By Ed Foster, Section Columns
Posted on Mon Dec 20th, 2004 at 08:02:57 AM PDT
Having so often been the bearer of bad news from the legal front, I am thrilled to have some good news to report for a change. The old-fashioned shrinkwrap license appears to have suffered from what may well be a mortal wound. Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Staples have agreed in the settlement of a California lawsuit to change their ways, and you can already see the first results at the software retailer nearest you.
In January 2003, California resident Cathy Baker walked into her local CompUSA store to return copies of Windows XP and Norton AntiVirus she'd purchased there. When trying to install the programs, she had of course been confronted by all the obnoxious terms in the Windows and NAV End User License Agreements. Instead of clicking OK, she took them back to the store for a refund, as the EULAs said she was supposed to do if she refused to accept the terms.
At CompUSA, however, Baker was told the store's policy was that it could not give refunds for software once the customer has opened the package. Even though Baker had no way of seeing the EULAs until after she purchased the products, took them home, opened the package and tried to install the software on her computer, she was now told she could not get her money back even when she rejected the terms. (In a somewhat bizarre twist, after she protested enough, one CompUSA employee told her that they had "secret instructions" from Symantec to provide refunds in such circumstances.) So, like many others before her, Baker was confronted with the classic shrinkwrap license conundrum: She could only see the terms by opening the box, and opening the box meant she was stuck with it. But Baker did something most others before her had not - she went and got a lawyer.
"When Miss Baker came to us, we felt it was an important case to bring for the benefit of the general public," says Baker's attorney, high tech litigation specialist Ira Rothken. "In our research, we found that it hadn't been discussed before - there was no guidance on it in the literature. Here you have a multibillion-dollar industry that is using improper business practices as a consistent policy, in violation of federal and California consumer warranty statutes. As a practical matter, the consumer couldn't review the terms and conditions prior to the sale and couldn't reject them with any certainty they could get all their money back."
After Rothken first filed the lawsuit in February of 2003, ensuing news coverage brought more consumers forward with similar stories of their own. An amended complaint to the case Rothken filed in May of that year added a second plaintiff along with Baker and also included Adobe, Staples and Best Buy as defendants with Microsoft, Symantec and CompUSA. Ultimately the parties entered a mediation process and in April they reached a settlement under which the six defendants had up to 120 days to make the agreed-upon changes to their procedures. The entire settlement along with the amended complaint and exhibits can be read in a PDF file on Rothken's website, but it reads in part:
"The Settlement Agreement provides to the General Public of California, amongst other things, the right of consumers to return applicable Symantec, Adobe and Microsoft software for full monetary refunds even if the shrink-wrap has been opened... In addition, Symantec, Adobe, and Microsoft agreed to provide EULAs for the applicable software products on their web site and notices on their respective software packaging of the web addresses to such EULAs so consumers can review such EULAs prior to purchase of the software." CompUSA, Best Buy and Staples "agreed to provide such EULAS to consumers upon request prior to sale of the above software at their retail stores in California and to provide notices to consumers in such stores to effectuate the above."
I work with videogames and at work, on a decent but unexciting HP Windows box I get great response time with my mouse, good enough to stand my own in lots of public servers.
At home I have one of the lamp-like iMacs with 1Ghz processor, 1GB RAM, 17" LCD monitor. When I try to play on the iMac (e.g. UT2k3), I have exactly the problem described. Figured it was my mouse, but see the same thing when I got a new one. Played around with all kinds of settings in-game and can't seem to shake the problem. It's bad enough that I simply don't play on this computer.
Putting aside the parent's comment about where the blame lies, I'd like to clarify the objective part of his point:
In Spain, forms with gender ask you to choose between M and V, or Mujer and Varon (women and man). In the past, H was used instead of M, standing for Hembra, which is the word for the female of a species. Although this wasn't quite as bad as in English (since 'bitch' in our language has several other negative meanings), it still was clearly not OK. Hence the change to M in forms.
No form today in Spain or anywhere would have H for Hembra, and it certainly should not appear in anything put out by a software company.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm from Ohio, but had the fortune to work for several years for a small Catalan consulting firm in Barcelona, Spain. I quit several months before moving back to the United States in order to do some travel, etc... Not least because I was leaving of my own accord, my farewell email was full of the usual well-wishes for colleagues and what not. The subject: Yankee Goes Home
Koosh marketing job?
http://www.starmagic.com/catalog/4441710P.JPG
No, but I did get tan running a pool once.
I wonder how they collected this particular statistic. It seems doubtful that they did it using any sort of objective traffic metrics, but rather that it was a survey of some sort where people were asked from where, if anywhere did they download music. If this is true, then the results of this study should be taken with a large grain of salt. Those downloading from the more notorious sites are less likely to respond truthfully than those using iTunes.
It's not enough to recognize a given word in language A is such and such word in language B, and not even enough to do the same with idiomatic phrases such as 'His bark is worse than his bite' (Mucho ruido, pocas nueces in Spanish, literally 'Lots of noise but few pecans').
The problem is that the content itself is sometimes changed in translation. Cultural differences, pop culture references, names and places are all changed liberally when creating movie subtitles. This is something that it is easy enough for a bilingual human to notice and disregard, but how is a computer to know what to keep and what to disregard when comparing the supposedly matching sources.
Choice of source material is extremely important here, and probably explains why they are starting with UN documents, a formal, business-like body of text with presumably less room for content differences. Unfortunately, the fact that movie translations cannot easily be used means that much of what we humans find amusing about bad babelfish translation (literal translation of slang, etc...) will continue to plague us for some time to come.
It's funny that you bill this as an American issue coming from the UK. I'm sure your observation is correct from the vantage point you're making it from. Many probably read this as a difference between Europe and the US.
But as an American who lived for 5 years in Spain, I was taken aback by just the opposite. People there are constantly asked for their 'NIF' (SSN). And they readily give it up, too - not just to what I (as an American) would call legitimate third parties such as a bank but even when signing up for contests, free offers, etc...
I was doing a coding project there for a bank and the developers even entered their own NIF's when testing the application. You can bet I never gave mine up!
Um, an oxymoron is something that is true / makes sense despite seeming to be a contradiction.
Baby steps are usually tentative, small moves towards an eventual goal. We usually use 'baby steps' as a phrase when talking about slowing down, accepting measured progress rather than rushing and the like.
Rapidly evolving baby steps is an amusing way of saying that from a modest start things are progressing in a rather quick way.
Hence, it's an oxymoron.
from TFA:
rapidly evolving baby steps
The harder problem is getting applications to process xml data faster. Starting with a gzipped data file and then processing it doesn't speed up processing. Some sort of parseable minimal text format or binary format, on the other hand, would make faster processing possible, just at the risk of diverging standards for how to convert to binary and read it thereafter.
My grandmother used to make Quilty Software to warm our wee little beds.
By Ed Foster, Section Columns Posted on Mon Dec 20th, 2004 at 08:02:57 AM PDT
Having so often been the bearer of bad news from the legal front, I am thrilled to have some good news to report for a change. The old-fashioned shrinkwrap license appears to have suffered from what may well be a mortal wound. Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Staples have agreed in the settlement of a California lawsuit to change their ways, and you can already see the first results at the software retailer nearest you.
In January 2003, California resident Cathy Baker walked into her local CompUSA store to return copies of Windows XP and Norton AntiVirus she'd purchased there. When trying to install the programs, she had of course been confronted by all the obnoxious terms in the Windows and NAV End User License Agreements. Instead of clicking OK, she took them back to the store for a refund, as the EULAs said she was supposed to do if she refused to accept the terms.
At CompUSA, however, Baker was told the store's policy was that it could not give refunds for software once the customer has opened the package. Even though Baker had no way of seeing the EULAs until after she purchased the products, took them home, opened the package and tried to install the software on her computer, she was now told she could not get her money back even when she rejected the terms. (In a somewhat bizarre twist, after she protested enough, one CompUSA employee told her that they had "secret instructions" from Symantec to provide refunds in such circumstances.) So, like many others before her, Baker was confronted with the classic shrinkwrap license conundrum: She could only see the terms by opening the box, and opening the box meant she was stuck with it. But Baker did something most others before her had not - she went and got a lawyer.
"When Miss Baker came to us, we felt it was an important case to bring for the benefit of the general public," says Baker's attorney, high tech litigation specialist Ira Rothken. "In our research, we found that it hadn't been discussed before - there was no guidance on it in the literature. Here you have a multibillion-dollar industry that is using improper business practices as a consistent policy, in violation of federal and California consumer warranty statutes. As a practical matter, the consumer couldn't review the terms and conditions prior to the sale and couldn't reject them with any certainty they could get all their money back."
After Rothken first filed the lawsuit in February of 2003, ensuing news coverage brought more consumers forward with similar stories of their own. An amended complaint to the case Rothken filed in May of that year added a second plaintiff along with Baker and also included Adobe, Staples and Best Buy as defendants with Microsoft, Symantec and CompUSA. Ultimately the parties entered a mediation process and in April they reached a settlement under which the six defendants had up to 120 days to make the agreed-upon changes to their procedures. The entire settlement along with the amended complaint and exhibits can be read in a PDF file on Rothken's website, but it reads in part:
"The Settlement Agreement provides to the General Public of California, amongst other things, the right of consumers to return applicable Symantec, Adobe and Microsoft software for full monetary refunds even if the shrink-wrap has been opened ... In addition, Symantec, Adobe, and Microsoft agreed to provide EULAs for the applicable software products on their web site and notices on their respective software packaging of the web addresses to such EULAs so consumers can review such EULAs prior to purchase of the software." CompUSA, Best Buy and Staples "agreed to provide such EULAS to consumers upon request prior to sale of the above software at their retail stores in California and to provide notices to consumers in such stores to effectuate the above."
There's a l
I might have seen this problem...
;)
I work with videogames and at work, on a decent but unexciting HP Windows box I get great response time with my mouse, good enough to stand my own in lots of public servers.
At home I have one of the lamp-like iMacs with 1Ghz processor, 1GB RAM, 17" LCD monitor. When I try to play on the iMac (e.g. UT2k3), I have exactly the problem described. Figured it was my mouse, but see the same thing when I got a new one. Played around with all kinds of settings in-game and can't seem to shake the problem. It's bad enough that I simply don't play on this computer.
Then again, I WAS trying to game on a mac...
Putting aside the parent's comment about where the blame lies, I'd like to clarify the objective part of his point:
In Spain, forms with gender ask you to choose between M and V, or Mujer and Varon (women and man). In the past, H was used instead of M, standing for Hembra, which is the word for the female of a species. Although this wasn't quite as bad as in English (since 'bitch' in our language has several other negative meanings), it still was clearly not OK. Hence the change to M in forms.
No form today in Spain or anywhere would have H for Hembra, and it certainly should not appear in anything put out by a software company.
What about CD-R's exposed to mountain dew?
Nothing at all against Romania, but you are getting a bit loose with the facts here:
Adult Literacy: US (99.0%) ROMANIA (97.8%)
GDB Per Head: US ($29,240) ROMANIA ($1,360)
Computers Per 100 Pop.: US (45.9) ROMANIA (1.0)
Source: The Economist (www.economist.com) Pocket World in Figures 2001 Edition.